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Dessert

Oatmeal Cookies

Oatmeal cookies made with oatmeal, flour, butter, eggs, sugar, baking soda, hot water, and optional flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Oatmeal Cookies

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Oatmeal Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine oatmeal and flour.

Make the dough

  1. Rub in the butter until well mixed.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, sugar, and baking soda; stir thoroughly.

  3. Pour in the hot water and mix well.

  4. Add flavoring to taste.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal
Provides chewy body and a hearty, rustic texture to the cookies.
Flour
Gives the dough structure so the cookies hold their shape while baking.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavour, and helps the cookies brown.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as they set in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown and crisp at the edges.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough to help the cookies rise and spread.

The step that matters

Pour in the hot water and mix well. Hot water helps the baking soda activate and melts some of the butter-sugar mixture, so the dough spreads evenly. Mixing well distributes the leavening so the cookies rise consistently rather than in patches.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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